How clean nuclear energy will put Saudi Arabia ahead of the climate-change curve

How clean nuclear energy will put Saudi Arabia ahead of the climate-change curve

LONDON: When a newspaper headline begins with the prefix “revealed,” most readers are sufficiently familiar with media shorthand to know that they are expected to react to the article that follows with surprise, or perhaps even concern. But when the UK’s Guardian newspaper ran a story in 2020 headlined “Revealed: Saudi Arabia may have enough uranium ore to produce nuclear fuel,” the real surprise was that the story was getting on for 50 years old. Saudi Arabia’s plans to develop a nuclear energy industry were not hatched overnight or in secret. The reality is that the Kingdom has been slowly, steadily and responsibly treading the complex regulatory and technical path toward the adoption of peaceful nuclear power for decades. It is clear that having moved cautiously and prudently, the Kingdom is now ready to embrace a technology that has come of age, in an era when access to clean energy has never been more essential. In February, Rafael Mariano Grossi, director general of the International Atomic Energy Agency, told the delegates at a virtual conference in Riyadh that the IAEA was working closely with Saudi Arabia to help the Kingdom develop the infrastructure for a peaceful nuclear energy program. In